Getting back into HCE; but questions

[thewood1]

How are DBs and battle sets interconnected. If I have the HCDB, will it operate with all the battlesets and scenarios with those battlesets.

Are all the current battlesets usable and have up to date scenarios

I know about HCD, but what are the other dbs out there

Thanks

[TonyE]

That first one is rather tough [:)]

The battlesets GIUK thru EC2000 IOPG each have a (outdated, uneditable) database built in to the battleset. You can see that by comparing the platforms in the platform display while in the various battlesets. EC2003, WestPac, Caribbean Basin, South Atlantic, South Africa, and The Middle East are what we call commondb battlesets, they will use HCDB in a default install but more importantly will use any commondb.res and commondb.rsr file you place into the game directory (or specify via command line). HCDA is another commondb battleset, some scenarios will state that the require HCDA in which case you put the commondb.res file into your HCE directory, then play the scenario. Some alternative databases, HCDA again as example, will not run the built-in EC2003 etc. scenarios since it doesn't have all of the platforms. Other alternative DBs like Rene's HC_80to95_DB will allow the stock scenarios to run. The final situation are BSBuilder battlesets, ones made with the battleset builder program. Those may or may not include a database and may or may not include scenarios, it is up to the battleset's publisher to indicate what additional pieces you need but the easiest way to go for players is to have the battleset publisher include both database and scenarios in the battleset files. User battlesets are almost always going to consist of two files, hdsu.res and hdsu.rsr, traditionally distributed in a single zip file.

All of the battlesets are useable, even the original USNI battleset if you track down a copy. The only scenarios we put any major effort into making sure are up to date in terms of functionality are the ones part of the commondb battlesets. In other words that means some victory conditions may be out of date in earlier battlesets, older scenarios will definitely have more flaws than newer ones. That doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable, it also doesn't neccessarily mean they ever were 'up to date'. We've found a number of cases where the 'legacy' battlesets had impossible victory conditions even when they were brand new. We fix what we can and that usually means a player volunteering time and effort to fix up the scenarios at which time we review them and do our best to stuff them back into the game for the next patch.

The most comprehensive list of publicly released databases is at: http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.ph ... &showcat=3

And scenarios: http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.ph ... &showcat=5

In other words, check out http://www.harpgamer.com as a whole for more HC information. It is where the beta process is run and is the main community site for new scenarios and databases.

Welcome back by the way [8D]